


cradled by sun

by heyitsathrowaway



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Epistolary, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 13:36:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12190953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyitsathrowaway/pseuds/heyitsathrowaway
Summary: Ah, Tutor. The ink makes me lonely these days. The ink and the cold bed I retire to every night, where in the past we might have kept it warm together.Do you remember the first night we spent together, out in the grass far beyond the tents, the stars winking at us from above? It's a memory I keep close to my heart. A precious jewel to take out and examine on cold, lonely nights.





	cradled by sun

**Author's Note:**

> with thanks to dark web twitter for letting me be on my alyosha/arrell bullshit always
> 
> title pulled from a clause in a sexwithflowers tweet because look. it's fine.

Ah, Tutor. The ink makes me lonely these days. The ink and the cold bed I retire to every night, where in the past we might have kept it warm together.

Do you remember the first night we spent together, out in the grass far beyond the tents, the stars winking at us from above? It's a memory I keep close to my heart. A precious jewel to take out and examine on cold, lonely nights. I'd lured you outside with the promise of stargazing--you always enjoyed that, not least because there were so many constellations I had yet to learn--but in truth, my only purpose was to spend more time alone with you, a bottle of wine to keep us company.

So as the stars grew brighter, we drank and watched the sky. I pressed close to your side, complaining of the cold that I did not truly feel. You let me, though I am sure you saw through me easily. You wrapped your arm around my shoulders and let me tuck my face into the crook of your neck, sharing your warmth.

The first moon rose. You turned and kissed me, slowly, lingering, wine on our tongues. We had done that before, over books, over quiet breakfasts, over the ends of arguments that had petered out into fondness. But that night we had nothing else to do, nowhere else to be. And I wanted to know you as completely as I could, the same way that I would sometimes become enamored with particular books, reading them over and over, scribbling in the margins until they had given up all their secrets. I wanted to know you like that, all your hidden corners laid bare. And part of me wanted to leave a mark on you, the way I might leave notes in a book. Proof that I had been here, with you. Even then, I knew how tenuous our position was. To think, if my younger self had any idea that so many years later, I would be writing this letter--

It wouldn't have mattered. I would have done the same things I did then: kissing you harder, pushing you back against the grass, tucking myself into your arms. Settling against your hips and gasping at the feel of you underneath me.

You reached a hand up to cup my cheek, brushing my hair back behind my ear. It's silly, but that was the first thing that made me shudder. The simple intimacy of your fingers in my hair, warm against my ear, touching me so gently. I had to close my eyes against it.

When you spoke, your voice had gone low. I shivered at that, too. "When you talk about Samothes," you said, "about the glory of the dawning of His sun--you know I don't understand it. But..." You fumbled for words. Something you so rarely do. But when I opened my eyes, you were smiling, and so I waited, feeling the weight of your gaze. "When I look at you," you said finally, "I think that perhaps I do understand."

Tears sprang to my eyes. I couldn't help it. To think, that you cared for me as I cared for the church--for Samothes--it was too much. I knew how closely guarded you kept your affections.

"Tutor," I said, voice shaking. It was all I could think to say. I laughed. You wiped away the few tears that had escaped, and I leaned down and buried my face in your neck, my lips pressed just under your ear. "I love you," I said, all in a rush. I was giddy with it, suddenly. "I love you. I want--" I wasn't sure what I wanted. I wanted to touch you. I wanted you inside me. I wanted your hands in my hair, your lips at my throat. I didn't know how to say any of those things, and so I kissed you instead, hoping that you would understand me. You were always so good at understanding me, the intricacies of my heart that were sometimes opaque even to myself. Years and years and hundreds of conversations will do that. But even then, so early on in our acquaintance--you knew me then, too. I think you knew me from the moment you laid eyes on me. And I you.

For a while we stayed like that, kissing while the second moon rose, your hands cradling my face. My lips felt warm and tender by the time that we were done. And then you drew back and sat up, so that I had to sit up with you, pressed close in your lap with your hand steady at my back.

The way you were looking at me wasn't indulgent. I think that would have hurt me. Instead you were looking at me with a softness in your eyes that I did not often get to see. The way you might look at a particularly beautiful painting or a moving passage in a book, one that has struck your heart. "What do you want, Alyosha?" you asked me, picking up the thread of our conversation as if nothing had interrupted it.

I couldn't look away from you, from the planes of your face and the heat in your eyes. "You," I said, the only truth I could muster. "Just you." And then I grinned, finding my footing once again. "What do _you_ want, Tutor?"

You didn't grow stern at my teasing, as you sometimes did. Instead your mouth quirked, and you shook your head. "A great many things. But for tonight..." You tipped my head back with a thumb at my jaw, and began to kiss my throat. You were methodical about it, in that way that you have--following a pattern known only to yourself. What _I_ know is that the next day I had an array bruises running up and down my neck, to the delight of all of my friends and the chagrin of my father.

I tried to keep my breathing steady as you sucked marks against my skin, and when that failed I tried to keep my voice from rising. You paused, and waved your hand in the air, as if you were swatting away an annoying fly. "Don't worry. No one will hear you," you said, as the spell settled around us. You pushed my shirt aside and pressed your teeth against the edge of my collarbone, and finally I let myself moan. "Except for me."

You've always been a little proprietary. I liked it, truthfully. I shrugged out of my shirt, too hot for it suddenly even in the cool night air, and we both rid ourselves of our clothes in a self-contained whirlwind, anxious to feel the press of skin. I had forgotten to be nervous--or perhaps I had remembered that you were just _you_ , after all--and I laughed as you got caught in your shirt, and I had to help you out of it. You tumbled me back into the grass, and my laughter turned to a gasp as you pressed against me. I wrapped my legs around your waist and rolled my hips against yours, basking in the feeling of it, of the novelty of touching you everywhere.

As with any subject, the church recognizes an array of texts taking various positions on this sort of intimacy. Samothes, bright though He may be, does not always cast His light clearly. It is up to us mortals to divine His true intentions. So here is what I believe: I believe any joyful act of physical intimacy is a holy thing, blessed by His light. How could it not be? To be so close to another, to share the same space, the same breath, the same heat--nothing could be more holy in the eyes of our lord.

I felt that heat then, the warmth we brought into the world between us. A closeness so terribly tender that it almost hurts to think about. I was yours then, wholly, and you were mine.

You pressed your fingers into me, so slowly that it brought tears back to my eyes, gentle enough that I could barely stand it. You put your mouth everywhere, against my chest and my stomach and the soft skin of my hips and the insides of my thighs, leaving marks that I would wonder and blush at for days to come. You kissed away the soft sounds that I made until my mouth grew slack, too overwhelmed to kiss you back. And when you finally pushed into me, I realized that you were right: it was like the sun coming over the horizon, just as bright and all-encompassing.

I tipped my head back, overcome with the feeling of you inside my skin, as close as any two people can ever be. I was grateful, then, for your slowness, the way your fingers brushed against my hair and then entwined with my own against the grass, keeping me from simply floating away. We moved together, closer to one person than to two, a new kind of joy that I was only just discovering.

I could hardly breathe when you brought me to my peak, and then I pulled you down and kissed you and sustained myself only on your breath as you joined me, my name on your lips, your voice low and ragged. You held me, curled around me as if you could protect me from the world, from the inevitability of the night's end, when we would have to pick ourselves up and find somewhere to wash and sneak back into our tents. 

But for long minutes we remained there, tangled up in each other, the wind whispering against us. 

I really am just as silly now as I was then. I remember--I thought I heard something. Perhaps it was the wind. Or perhaps you told me that you loved me, voice quiet and soft, a simple prayer. Like the texts of the church, we all must make our own choices about what we believe.

I love you, Tutor. And I hope that wherever you are, the wind carries that message to your ears.


End file.
